How Your Brand Can Win On Instagram In 2022

Social media marketing can be a great source of website conversion and sales, but not every business is using social media effectively. If your marketing strategy is looking for a boost in awareness, acquisition, and conversion, look no further than Instagram to get your brand to the next level. Instagram can be a marketing powerhouse if you know how to effectively leverage the channel. The platform has proven itself to be a fantastic marketing channel for some of the most recognizable brands in the world who have leveraged it as a means to provide eye-catching visuals combined with interactive copy, and engaged community building to boost conversions. Your brand has the same opportunities for growth by utilizing the channel. From marketing research to feature updates, Instagram provides several ways to reach and engage your customers without spending thousands of monthly ad dollars. 

Without a clear plan for your business it’s easy to get lost in the Instagram madness. With millions of photos and countless accounts, it’s not surprising you’re wondering how Instagram is working for your business — and whether or not you should continue to invest in the platform. If you’re attempting to get a handle on your current strategy, it’s important to know the factors which will contribute to successes on the platform throughout the remainder of 2022 and beyond. Here are a few ways we recommend leveraging Instagram to see significant lift in your core marketing goals. 

Lean heavily into Instagram Reels 

Instagram Reels is the latest feature to roll-out on the platform, and it is also the most powerful tool to get your brand rewarded by the Insta-algorithm gods. Meta’s answer to TikTok, Reels are a new way of sharing video content on the platform. Coincidentally, as video becomes a bigger conversion player on the platform, Reels are given more priority within the app. Instagram Reels allows you to create 15, 30, 60sec, to 3-minute visual content that plays in a loop. Each frame includes overlays of text, fun design elements, and captivating trending music to entertain and educate your audience all the while demonstrating your particular product or industry! With Reels you can share more impactful content with your audience without having to post multiple times per day, or wait for users to scroll through their feeds to see them individually. Instagram shows Reels in the explore page, as recommended posts, and as a separate “Reels” feed in the channels. Based on similarly liked content, and related interests, Instagram will show your Reel to more of the users you want to attract to your page. 

When done consistently and thoughtfully, this is a fantastic growth opportunity both for your IG account and your brand. Simply by creating fun, captivating video content you can:

1. Expand your content’s reach 

2. Get noticed by more of your target audience

3. Build brand and product awareness

4. Increase your following 

5. Grow an engaged and interactive community

Best of all get found by people who want to know more about your business and who are eager to visit your website and join your lists. Instagram Reels gives your brand the flexibility and attention to get seen by more of your fans and dream customers. This is why the feature needs to be a core part of your current Instagram strategy. You don’t want to just post content for the sake of posting. To truly “win” on Instagram, you have to be strategic, consistent and creative. If you don’t have the capability or time to get in front of a camera weekly, look to source creative content from Inflencers for your current customers who will create engaging, visually appealing content on behalf of your brand. 

5 Types of Reels content to create and share: 

1. Product demonstrations

2. Pain Point Solutions 

3. Tips, Tricks, and Time-saving hacks

4. FAQs 

5. Customer-reviews/First impressions 

Enable Shopping Tags

A big part of Instagram’s appeal is that it essentially functions as a social media search engine for users looking for new products, brand info, customer reviews, or information about their favorite products. Brands should be using Instagram for market research, audience insights, social proof, and of course, a way to drive product awareness and interest to your website. Instagram is not only the place where people view photos, it’s a visual storefront where people like to browse and shop. “IG Shopping” allows users to buy products directly from their feeds or stories with just a few taps. If you sell a product, your Instagram page should act as a second ecommerce store for your business, showcasing your products and providing engaging information that gets your fans and customers excited to learn more, or even make a purchase right from your page or website. Instagram shopping is a great feature that every e-comm brand should use in a variety of ways on the platform.  

Three major why you can utilize Shop tags right now: 

1. Enable Instagram Shopping and tag your products in your organic posts to drive more interest, cart adds, and purchase conversions.

2. Tag products in Stories to increase engagement and drive shoppers directly to your product pages.

3. Use the new direct-response carousel ads that allow you to link directly to product pages with one tap.

Instagram shopping creates a seamless way to introduce your products, move your followers to your product pages and guide them to checkout. With Shops and product tags, your audience can quickly browse your products as soon as they land on your posts. This empowers your brand to move from awareness to conversion in a matter of minutes. Product tags are also a great way to win email opt-ins, or drive incentive purchases with platform exclusive deals for your audience. From product tags, shoppable ads, IG LIve shopping streams, and shop guides, Instagram gives your business the tools to showcase, educate, inform and convert more of your followers without worrying about the bounce rates on your product and landing pages. 

Share Interactive Stories Daily 

Stories are probably the most popular and most used feature on Instagram. When used consistently and creatively, it can be a great growth driver for your brand’s goals on the channel. Because of its placement on the app, Stories are front and center in the sightline of a user and people can click on the icons of the pages they follow to see what’s happening in real-time through stories. With Stories, you can create content that only remains visible on your account for 24 hours. Which is a good thing, because when users see a new Story, they know it’s fresh, relevant content, and they are more likely to engage with it. Perhaps the most unique way to truly leverage IG Stories is by utilizing its variety of sticker features. These stickers allow your posts to become a 2-way street of engagement, entertainment, and interaction with your audience. With the Question sticker you can hold Q&As that encourage feedback about your brand or product from your customers, with the Poll sticker you can get audience surveys completed in a snap that help spur your next campaign. There are also stickers for your product tags, link stickers to send traffic to a landing page, and so much more. You can add a variety of other sticker types to IG Stories to enhance user engagement. 

To get the most from using IG Stories, your brand needs to post every day. However, the benefits far outweigh the time and commitment needed. When your audience can see more from your brand you can: 

1. Increase engagement with interactive features. 

2. Get people excited to communicate with your brand’s content 

3. Drive link clicks, profile and website conversions through clickable hyperlinks

4. Generate leads with shop tags and email opt-in incentives

5. Humanize your brand through visual storytelling highlighting employees or specific products and services.

6. Boost your brand visibility by getting in front of your target audience quickly. 

7. Expand your reach with hashtags, location tags, and special stickers, to draw in new people based on related interests 

8. Get instant feedback about your brand and products from your customers in real-time, allowing you to scale your campaigns more effectively

9. Build familiarity and increase trust with your audience. Users will become more familiar and comfortable with your company and what it stands for, increasing the chance of customer conversions and brand loyalists.

You can see maximum visibility and engagement by publishing fresh stories each day by posting at the peak time your audience is online each day. Again, stories “expire” or disappear after 24 hours, so if you want to make sure you are showing up and standing out in the crowd of your audience’s feeds, you need to keep your stories posted consistently. Getting started with Instagram Stories is easy, and you can optimize your Stories strategy to suit your marketing objectives as needed. Using this feature also doesn’t cost a dime, making it one of the best ways to attract relevant users to your account, and your website organically.

Make engagement and community a priority 

Most marketers live by the rule of ‘what gets measured gets managed’, so organic social media typically finds itself at the bottom of the marketing totem pole. But as people become increasingly reliant on using social platforms for connection and community, organic social is more important than ever for brands to manage. Engagement has always been important, but nowadays, it should be the center of your organic strategy. Both Millennials and Gen Z are leaning more towards creating genuine connections and relationships with the brands and products they consume, so your brand needs to come to the forefront of its audience by building true community through engagements. By fostering engagement you are creating genuine interactions and conversations with real people in your target demographic that you can turn into fans, customers, and loyalists for your brand. Your strategy should focus on the people on the platform you are trying to reach, and not only on posting attractive content. Which is where a lot of brands miss the mark. When developing your content strategy you should think about your audience. What are their interests? What are their values? What other content are they engaging with? What are their pain-points? Then use the answers to create content that gets them excited to interact with. 

This doesn’t mean your efforts can’t be measured or scaled with organic social and community management. Your content performance should be measured by likes, saves, comments, and shares. These are all important indicators that your content is serving the purpose of spartking your community into a conversation. And a conversation is a two-way street. When your community takes the time to engage with your brand’s content, you should take this opportunity to get the conversation started. The more interactions you have with your fans, the easier it is to establish relationships that you can move from social into other channels like email, or SMS, that eventually lead into sales, repeat sales, and advocates. 

It all comes down to providing the audience what they want, in a way that’s going to give them a reason to come back for more. Many brands are using IG to test ideas, experiment and gauge customer response, from both a visual and behavioral perspective. From there you can take the best ideas and create your own unique and branded Instagram Content Calendar. The best way to win on Instagram is to learn how to play the game. Reels, IG Stories, Shopping Tags and community engagement are what your brand needs to get to the next level on Instagram. With a combination of these strategies your brand can see impressive growth on the platform. Instagram is always changing and evolving, just as all social platforms do. How you adapt and deliver is what creates a successful organic social strategy. If you need support for your brand on social media, or are looking for in-house social media management give Idealgrowth a call.